Learning to Balance Feminine and Masculine for Authentic Wholeness

I have body injuries and ailments, all on my left side. Talking about these with other women, I’ve been surprised at how many have confessed that they too have issues on their left side. 

Being a big believer of the brain body connection, I often look for the metaphysical meaning of an injury. Metaphysically, the left side of the body represents female energy, according to some, mother energy. The left side of the body, ruled by the right hemisphere of the brain, is responsible for creativity, intuition and feelings, often considered to be more “feminine” characteristics.

After learning this it is no surprise to me that my physical ailments are all on my left side, because I am more like my father than my mother. 

My father was a soldier, a Green Beret, and recently I even blurted out, emanating from deep within my gut, I’m a f***ing soldier. I learned how to persevere in my upbringing. I toughened up and got through multiple military moves burying my feelings of loss and sadness. As an adult I learned to power through and keep my body in tip top shape, as any soldier would do, by exercising. In my memoir, I write, “For fifteen years, I’d kept my muscles rocklike and my stomach hard.” 

I have known for a long time that my feminine side was weak. In my teenage angst and rebellion I vowed never to be as dependent on a man as my mother was on my father, therefore rejecting homemaking, cooking, whatever it was I associated with the mother role.

My identity was formed through my work and as many women today competing in the capitalistic world as defined by men. In my experience, “business” dealings, have been harsh, cut throat at times and have caused me to conquer and quiet my feelings of rejection, unfairness, impropriety even.

So having had existed in the world in this way up to now, it is no surprise to me that my left side, my feminine side, my “feeling” side, that I had denied in order to push through, has started calling for acknowledgement, acceptance, and release. 

Recently, a talk I had practiced, prepared for and had expectations of, didn’t go as planned. Afterwards, I found a trusted woman and cried on her shoulder. This is what the feminine side of me needed. This is what the little girl in me needed. This is what, in the past, I would have denied and tried to stuff back inside.

This next morning the feelings were still present. 

Soldier Susan would have gotten up and gone to the gym anyway. She would have pumped her muscles to stay strong, which is an empowering feeling as I age, but it would have also been to push the sad, frustrated feelings back down. However, this is not healthy for the feminine side of me. 

This is not smart for any woman to do. This is not wise if you want to become whole, authentic, confident, knowing, and honest, especially honest with one’s self. This is not good for our young daughters or women in our circle to see. We women must show that we can be balanced, human, hurt, self-soothing and soft all the while embracing work and maintaining a competitive edge. To be whole women we must love and value our entire body: our physical body, our body of thought and our body of emotion.

While my brain could have powered through, my emotional body needed to take my Teddy Bear, Buttercup, to bed for a short moment and let the tears flow. Doing this helped my feminine side know it’s okay to have emotions. Allowing this helped the uncomfortable feelings move through me. They did not stay trapped in my body and therefore my heart remains open.

We women have to experience ALL our emotions: happy, sad, awful, disgusting, loving, joyful, ecstatic, the list could go on and on. Only when we do this can we be authentically confident and boldly balanced in the world today. 

When all we women are permissive with ourselves to be fully female, soft and tender with everyone else of course, but first and foremost with ourselves, our physical ailments, if not subsiding completely, will at least be balanced on both side of our magnificent lovely female bodies. Our bodies that are perfect just the way they are, no matter what size, shape, age or ethnicity—bodies that once we honor and balance we’ll be better able to establish boundaries around and protect.

Today I may be a little sad, a little hung over from a feeling, but this will change. My left side ailments will heal. Of this I am certain.